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From Belafonte to the blues: Guy Davis’ uncommon life

Kiley Armstrong
Published 7:54 p.m. CT June 24, 2015

Blues musician Guy Davis wears the larger-than-life mantle of his late parents: activist-actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. The New York native travels the world sharing music steeped heavily in America’s South, invoking an era of his ancestors.(Photo: AP/Joseph A. Rosen)

NEW YORK – The blues, at its best, strikes a common chord: Guy Davis unspools everyman’s tale with earnest, engaging ease — but his own story is uncommon.

This down-to-earth bluesman wears the larger-than-life mantle of his late parents: activist-actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

The New York native travels the world sharing music steeped heavily in America’s South, invoking an era of his ancestors.

“Blues music, to me, is the music of survivors,” says Davis. “I grew up in a home where we talked, we listened, we sang. … There were stories heard in my family that involved racism, lynching.”

Today, Davis contemplates incarnations of age-old themes: “Killings in the name of personal hatred … political hatred … religious hatred.”

“I’m a musician; my friends are musicians,” he says. “Maybe we can help to generate a positive spirit, one of brotherhood, opening up. … The solution can have to do with love … reaching people by telling stories.”

The musician and actor, who’s also got a fun-loving side, spoke about his life and career while hunkering down to work on his 11th album and heading to this weekend’s Rockland-Bergen Music Festival in Tappan, New York.

“I couldn’t be a politician. I can tell lies, but I tell them for entertainment,” he jokes.

His voice — gritty, sensuous, filled with longing, resignation and a spritz of raunchiness — cleaves to his rhythmic fretwork as he enshrines the masters and weaves musical stories of his own.

Music, says Davis, referencing the writer Kurt Vonnegut, is the only thing needed to prove that God exists.

Family and friends influenced Davis. As a “wee lad,” he was fascinated by his aunt’s guitar. “I put my hand in the hole and tried to … rip the strings out. I was trying to find the music.”